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Review of MECOS microscopy
complex utilities
Family of MECOS-C2 automated microscopy systems
includes
hardware-software complexes with different equipment and programs
compositions. Thanks to modular
architecture all types of standard microscopy techniques (bright field, dark
field, polarization, reflected, inverted, luminescent), different levels of output, automation,
image quality, multifunctionality can be offered. Variety of
properties are supported by usage of many typical well-known models of
microscopes, videocameras, motorized utilities, computers, together with
large group of functional programs for different analyses, and together with
a lot of special
and typical options such as 40x oil objective, motorized stages for many
glasses, special specimen holders, immersion oil dropping device, specimen
preparation tools, slide handler system, slide identification bar code
device and more.
The below article are intended for
user preferring to choice complete set himself. Just the same we recommend
read it briefly a user who doesn’t interest in technical details and is going
to book a full system through our consultation.
Classic binocular microscopes don’t
mean be used for video shooting. Modern microscopy system needs binocular
microscope with additional phototube – trinocular microscope.
The MECOS system can be completed by
trinocular microscopes of most manufacturers. A microscope must include
adapter for videocamera connection (C-mount usually)
with magnitude matching to censor size of videocamera. Cost effective complete set arises if a
hand trinocular microscope is completed by our MECOS-MS2 motorization
equipment. The equipment can’t be integrated with a bad mechanics quality
cheep microscopes. There are examples of low boundary mechanics quality
microscopes among models of different manufacturers:
NIKON Eclipse E200; Zeiss Axiostar+; Motic BA300; Olympus BX41;
Leica DME; Meiji Techno MT4300H.
Don’t hesitate to consult us
if you are going to buy microscope for MECOS system yourself.
There are brief review of a
group of well known models of microscopes for MECOS AMS.
Motic
BA300.
Quality of optics and
mechanics is satisfactory minimally for MECOS-MS2 usage with speed about 50%
of nominal (maximum). 1 specimen load is possible (MECOS-MS21). For educational and routine medical purposes is
recommended.
NIKON Eclipce
E200F.
Quality of optics and
mechanics allows to achieve about 80% of nominal (maximum)
of MECOS-MS2 speed. Up to 3 specimens load
is possible (MECOS-MS23). For routine medical purposes are
recommended.
Meiji Techno
MT4300H
Quality of optics and
mechanics allows to achieve
100% of nominal (maximum)
of MECOS-MS2 speed. Up to 3 specimens load
is possible (MECOS-MS23). For routine medical purposes are
recommended.
Leica DM1000, Olympus BX41, Nikon Eclipce 50i.
Quality of optics and
mechanics allows to achieve
100% of nominal (maximum)
of MECOS-MS2 speed. Up to 8 specimens load
is possible. For routine and advanced medical purposes are
recommended.
Leica
DM2500, Olympus BX51
Quality of optics and
mechanics allows to achieve
100% of nominal (maximum)
of MECOS-MS2 speed. Up to 100 specimens
load is possible. For routine and advanced medical and investigational purposes
are
recommended.
Leica DM6000
Integrated motorized microscope. It has
XYZ motorized drivers, 1 specimen load, motorized condenser and motorized objective revolver,
high accuracy of a specimen travel. Speed of a specimen relocation is under
70% of MECOS-MS2 speed. For advanced medical
and investigational purposes is recommended.
MECOS systems use PC computer
beginning from Pentium
4 Win XP. Some videocameras can demand additional standard utilities. Advanced sets
are preferred for more fast work, database size and reliability, net
connection. Resolution of display must match resolution of videocamera
used. Please don’t hesitate to consult us if you are going to buy PC
yourself.
Equipment of
motorization
choice
Equipment of motorization (automation) can consist of
the following units: motorized focus drive; motorized xy stage; motorized
objective revolver and motorized condenser; motorized filter holder;
controlled illumination; motorized slide handler, slide bar code
identification and others. Choice of motorized equipment depends on microscope
properties and needs our consultations. For more details see
Motorization equipment
Specimen preparation tools choice
Advanced property of MECOS programs is possibility to work with hand made
specimens of blood. Hand techniques of specimen preparation
use cheap materials but have low level of standardization and are
labor intensive. Modern automated specimen preparation
devices can improve significantly labor conditions and analyses
accuracy.
We recommend to use
such devices, see Specimen preparation tools.
Specimen
preparation devices are strongly recommended fore
some techniques such as
helminth
eggs analysis and blood smear analysis with equipment for many smears
cimultanious
load.
Videocamera
choice
There are hundreds of types of videocameras for microscopy
on market. They differ by resolution, time of shooting, speed of input,
color quality, sensitivity, level of noise, controllability, live video
quality, computer interface and others.
Analogue
videocameras have TV output and with acquisition cards (frame-grabbers)
produce up to 0.4 M
pixel digital color or b/w images. Digital
videocameras can produce digital images up to 24 M pixel.
As
quantity as quality of image pixels are important for computer analysis and
for visual analysis on a computer screen. Color 3CCD cameras
have advantage in accuracy of color transfer above 1CCD (1CMOS) cameras.
Cameras with 10 or more bits per pixel have advantage in accuracy
of brightness (dynamic range) transfer above cameras with less bits
per pixel.
The more the number of image pixels a
censor of a camera has the less its image per second transfer speed to a computer. For
example 4 M
pixel color images can be input presently not faster then 15 frames per second. It
may be too slow for live object viewing or for fast automatic analysis of
blood smear. The more
magnification of microscope objective is used the less videocamera pixel resolution
is effective because of optical restrictions.
So choice
of videocamera with large pixel resolution can be not best choice for your
application. Please don’t hesitate to consult us if you are going to buy
videocamera yourself.
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